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Monday, 31 January 2011

Tall Tales

As a child I was always taller than my peers until I went to secondary school. On many a school photograph I stood out as being ahead of not only the other girls but the boys too! This wasn't without it's problems as some of the kids at primary school nick named my Godzilla because of my much greater height. It felt good at secondary school to have 10-12 girls in my year group of 150. By the time I stopped growing at 14 I was 5ft 8 1/2 (173 cm) which was well above average then but nowadays isn't very unusual.

My kids seem to be following in my footsteps which is partly due to me and partly due to their dad being 6ft 1. In her class my daughter is one of the tallest and comes on the 75th centile on the growth charts. My son at nursery towers above most of his class and is taller than children 2-3 years older being on the 98th centile.

As I can't remember my exact height until I was 10 - I was level with my mum who was 5ft 4 - its not easy to compare how they match up to me yet as they are only 7 and 4 respectively. However by looking at photographs I can see myself in relation to other people and then compare this with my kids today.

This is a photograph of me with my Granny and my brother when I was 6 1/2:

As you can see I was above her shoulder in height and not far behind my older brother (then aged 8 1/2). My granny has never been very tall but as she is still alive it was interesting to see that today my 7 year old is up to great granny's shoulder! I have told my daughter that the benchmarks are being as tall as her granny at 10 and as tall as me by 14... With my son its just going to be a case of wait and see whether he reaches his predicted height of 6ft 2-3...

How do your children compare to you when it comes to height? Have a look back at photographs of you at the same age and see who is taller....